ISB study finds NABH digital health standards improve hospital efficiency
Hyderabad, Aug 27(TNT): Hospitals adopting the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH) Digital Health Standards (DHS) have reported significant improvements in operational efficiency, clinical decision-making and digital maturity, according to a new study by the Max Institute of Healthcare Management at the Indian School of Business (ISB).
The findings are part of a white paper titled ‘Post-Adoption Value of NABH Digital Health Standards: A Multi-Hospital Assessment in India’, which assessed the impact of digital accreditation across 20 DHS-certified hospitals representing Silver, Gold and Platinum certification levels.
The study included 80 qualitative interviews with senior stakeholders from hospital leadership, quality, IT, operations and clinical teams, along with a quantitative survey.
The study found that hospitals primarily adopted DHS to improve patient care quality (98.1 per cent) and operational efficiency (88.5 per cent), while hospital leadership drove 76.9 per cent of adoption decisions.
Following certification, the average digital maturity score of the hospitals increased from 3.42 to 4.35 on a five-point scale.
System integration improved from 3.31 to 4.35, while the use of digital records in clinical decision-making rose from 3.00 to 4.37.
The study also reported improvements in data privacy and documentation quality, both scoring 4.56, operational efficiency at 4.38 and interoperability at 4.29.
The overall value of DHS was rated at 4.62 out of five. One hospital reported a reduction in revenue leakage from 33 per cent to seven per cent.
The study noted that implementation depended on both technology and people. Staff training, cited by 85.7 per cent of respondents, and workflow redesign, cited by 65.4 per cent, emerged as the most demanding implementation efforts.
It also found that hospital experiences varied more according to facility size, baseline digital maturity and leadership commitment than geographical location.
The white paper was unveiled at ISB by Ajay Seth, Chairperson of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), in the presence of Chakravarthy Kannan, Secretary General of the Quality Council of India and CEO (I/C) of NABH, Rizwan Koita, Chairperson of NABH, Professor Sarang Deo, Executive Director of ISB’s Max Institute of Healthcare Management, Avinash Pandey, Group Leader, NABH Digital Health, and Sandeep Rath, Assistant Professor of Operations Management at ISB, among others.
Seth said digital health standards should serve as a foundation for improving the availability, accessibility and affordability of healthcare rather than being treated merely as a compliance exercise.
He said interoperable and open digital systems, along with standardised and high-quality data, could support better clinical and financial decision-making, improve efficiency and productivity, and strengthen the evidence base for healthcare delivery.
He also stressed the need for collaboration among regulators, healthcare providers, academia and quality institutions.
NABH Chairperson Rizwan Koita said digital health and artificial intelligence had become essential to strengthening healthcare delivery and that the study provided insights into how digital health standards could help hospitals improve processes, efficiency, quality and patient care.
Sandeep Rath, lead author of the study, said India’s healthcare system was digitising rapidly and standards such as DHS could help make the transition systematic rather than fragmented. He cited better documentation, shorter discharge and waiting times and reduced revenue leakage among the measurable gains reported by hospitals.
The report concluded that NABH Digital Health Standards could serve as a practical, long-term framework for sustained organisational change rather than a one-time compliance exercise.
TNT TS
